"No, we haven't seen it. Let her go."
Stacy raised his eyes from the table-cloth. Those of the juniors that had left and some of the seniors, hearing the racket, had come in to see what was up. The piano had ceased. Fellows were pushing into the room with cues in their hands and their coats off. Some of them were sitting on the table. Some had their arms about one another's shoulders. Leaning against the door-post, with a pipe in his mouth and a merry twinkle in his eye, stood a senior named Bangs, whom Stacy, in freshman year, feared more than anything on earth. He had never, until this moment, forgiven him.
Before Bangs and over half the active membership of the club did little Stacy, who used to cross the street to avoid being looked at, jump up on a chair and with greater gusto than ever, with his funny little mouth twisted up, with his voice strained to produce a peculiar resonance, repeat part of a sermon once preached by the president of the college. And when he had finished, his hearers were doubled up on the floor with laughter.
Throughout all this Stehman alone seemed unappreciative. He laughed in a nervous way. Once he said, "Let's go sit by the fire." Could it be possible that his good friend Jack, who was accustomed to being the most popular, was—no, he would not think that of him.
"Do something else," they were crying. "Go on. Go on. Please!"
If he wanted to he could double them up once more, this time with an imitation of Jimmie Johnson's stuttering, but he absolutely declined. He knew that brevity was the soul of wit. "Stacy, you ought to go on the stage!" one of the seniors exclaimed.
But he only answered, "Naw. That don't amount to anything. Shoot." And then they all began laughing once more at the mere remembrance of it.
Jack arose to go. Stacy picked up the huge cigar, which had gone out, and jamming it firmly between his teeth, strode after his host. He walked past the fellows, who were still laughing, as modestly and with as unconscious an expression as Jack Stehman himself wore on the football field when running back to his place after making a touch-down and the crowd was cheering.
In the hall he said, "I think I'll have to go now, Jack." His voice was joyously nervous. He could not hold in much longer.
"Must you go, Ray?"